


keep your hand steady

by tnevmucric



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Akechi Goro Has A Palace, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-07-28 14:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16243856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnevmucric/pseuds/tnevmucric
Summary: the campaign his body sells is something he'd rather live without





	keep your hand steady

There is a melody in the middle of the night which folds itself to its host's own dilemma. Hope, maybe, with an idiosyncratic affliction. The shower is running loud enough for it to be ignored, but it is so clear within the fog outside the room that a part of him just wants to succumb to it. Maybe drink it all out of some fancy cup. The humming coming from the bathroom doesn't help sate the self-destructive need but he finds himself leaning towards the low rumble; back curled uncomfortably against the side of the bed and thighs cold on the floor, his ear inches closer to the door. His autonomy follows the smell of pomegranate soap and floats into the shower drain, down ankles and calves where it belongs. The water squeaks off.

This is the one place where dread feeds.

"You're up late." The young man leaves wet footprints on the floorboards and he instinctivey curls his fingers into his biceps; something disgustingly appreciative rises in his throat at the sight of the man's face.

"Yeah", he whispers finally, "couldn't sleep."

"That's the third time this week."

"How is it here?"

It is far too easy to fall into the regular _give, take, recieve_ conversational cycle than it is to allow lapses of silence and critiquing judgement. The man smiles with his eyes, holding a soft pair of pants in his hand loosely.

"You always ask."

"I like to think it gives me some inkling onto what is occurring in my brain."

"Relax", he slides the grey cotton over his legs and shimmies it over his waist. Water still rolls over his shoulders. "It's the same. Same walls, same lights, same floor... you always expect it to change."

"Do I?" He nods and picks a plain shirt from one of the drawer sets.

"You want what's happening to change your outlook", he smiles as he turns, cocking his head, "but we both know distortion doesn't work that way. You want revenge too much to change. You know that."

"Maybe."

"Come on, off the floor. It's too cold."

He takes the man's hand and allows himself to be pulled up. It's a better excuse for a hug than any and he drops his forehead onto the solid chest in front of him. It's easy to feel safe.

"You gotta go", he is told. "She'll be here soon."

"I know."

"Don't sit through it again."

"I just wanna stay for a while." If this were live television, he'd leave the stage with a witty remark and smile- walking stiffly to the bathrooms and laughing at remarks made in passing. In the stall, with his shoulders pushed back, he would force five slaps into his own face and try to gouge out whatever weakness caused his voice to crack. "I just wanna stay", he repeats.

"Akechi-"

"Go away."

The warmth the man brought is torn away like a tablecloth during a bad magician's act. He slumps to the ground, no longer being held up by familiarity but dragged down by it. The bathroom door is barely open, steam shining the ceiling and door hinges.

The clock hesitates at three fifteen and, with a gasping breath, sucks all of the air from the room. The walls shudder and sob and sharp intakes of breath are smothered by a shower curtain.

He closes his eyes and listens to her die.

 

* * *

 

  
Akira blinks at him tiredly.

"Coffee?"

"No."

"Tea?"

"No."

"Wanna tell me what's up, then?"

The difference between Akira Kurusu and the cognitive toy of him that resides within Goro Akechi's brain is mind-numbingly pathetic and makes Goro himself feel like one of the many whores festering in the reflections of the red light district. He likes to pretend how easy it is to look over childish wants. He likes to ignore the acknowledgement of a _need._

"I-", but he's here for a reason. This is the end of the metaphorical train line (he'd stood there long enough waiting for one to hit him before resolving to the fact that he'd get sick before they were even reactivated at dawn). Logically, this is the way to achieve what he wants. Logically this shouldn't even matter but it does.

He's tired, he's still a kid, and he needs help more than he wants it (but even then, that's still questionable).

"I don't think you understand how hard it is for me to-", his tongue stops moving, his throat clenches and an instilled treatment makes his spine twitch, "I can't breathe. It's hard and- and I can't-"

He can feel Akira's pity too blatantly, as if the teenager tried his hardest, in sculping his personality, to emulate the sensation of glass in the soles of your feet. It smells sour and romantic for all intents and purposes and Goro wants to throw it up, he wants it out of his system because it is coming in _waves._

Leblanc has never felt so unsafe.

"I'm going to have a panic attack in a second", he spits out quickly. "I really am. I can't believe this. I can't believe I'm going into shock, _here_ , of all places. _Fuck-_ ", it feels like a metal toothpick lodges itself in the front of his brain and he clutches his forehead, barstool creaking beneath him, "I _hate_ it here, I hate-"

Akira reaches out but the acid burns on his tongue first.

" _Don't_ -", he chokes out, fist now digging at his own chest. "Don't touch me, it- it'll _pass_. It'll pass. Fuck. _Fuck_."

"You could try looking up at the ceiling and focusing on the cracks, it usually helps Futaba."

"I don't-"

"Just try, doesn't matter if it doesn't work because like you said-", Akira looks like a matter of different people with every sentence he decides. His choices make him more amorphic than defined characteristics. "It'll pass."

Goro blinks quickly, forcing his head back (tilting it down on sensitive bones, ready to snap) and tries to keep his eyes dry as he struggles to swallow. He's glad he's in pyjamas and not a tie- he might've been tempted to hang himself to avoid this whole situation. He still regrets it.

It's worse that he can feel Akira's eyes just... _digging_. Finding nothing. There's the column of his throat and the sweat curling his hair but Akira can't see anything more. Or at least that's how it seems. He hopes it infuriates the Shujin student. Hopes that he'll never be able to degrade what he'd spent years building. Bad attempts at flirting and relation were not going to cause an earthquake to his internal structure, not if he had anything to do with it.

Goro worked too hard for everything to come crumbling back down.

There are hours where it seems past and future don't exist, he remembers the cognitive Akira saying. Which, by technical means, is just himself. Himself with a prettier face and more friendly attitude. First thought, best thought, he'd say, and the floor erupts beneath you.

 _To Goro Akechi_ , he thinks with a lax vigour. Goro Akechi who knowingly had sex with a cognitive perception of someone who he'd come very close to calling a friend. _You disgusting fuck._

"Stop fucking staring at me."

Akira was right, there were a lot of cracks on the ceiling but the dead stare inching into him was getting annoying. With a final breath he swings his head back down, clutching his temples at the blood rush and focusing on the cold counter. More so Akira's cold, unchanged and unemotive demeanor.

"What?", Goro snaps.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like shit", his nails drag over his hair and scalp painfully. "How are you?"

"Akechi-"

"Stop. You- you already _know_ how fucking hard this is for me. I don't care whether or not I have your sympathy, but at least apply some _thought_ to the topic."

The faucet is dripping in the kitchen and it's not in sync with his heart, something that would have put him into another execution of panic if it weren't for the steady drop of Akira's phone between them. Goro knows the lockscreen. He doesn't _want to_ but he _does_.

"And?" He'd slap himself ten times for that disaster. He almost sounded prepubescent: a teenage mess watching Harrison Ford take his shirt off at thirteen. Akira tilts his head.

"I thought I'd have to convince you."

Goro feels his lips snarl.

"So what? It's just another palace. It's not like I'm an issue to society- if anything, I'm another shiny thing that they can put on their fucking shelves. Have you figured out the words yet? Been in?"

"I take it you have."

"Don't act _dumb_ , I know you-"

" _Don't act dumb_ ", Akira repeats. The words are chalk on the both of their palettes. "Take your gun out."

Goro's a trigger away from grabbing a wrench and fixing the fucking tap himself.

"Why?"

"I know you're not going to kill me now", that pity is back again and this time, in a full blown zone of _pathetic_ , "but it's unsettling knowing it's there."

The gun clatters on the polished wood but the weight of it still sits on Goro's hip: a phantom limb with a trigger-happy itch. Akira picks it up easily, weighing it in his hand for a moment before glancing up.

"Why do you keep it on you?"

"If you know", it's easier to ignore the question (it isn't), "then what role do I play in your plan? I'd like to know."

"I know."

"We're honest with each other."

"We are. I'm not telling you."

This is where logic gets him. Goro almost slaps Akira's glasses off his face. He swallows the irritation down instead.

"I have a right to know if your friends intend on fucking around in my head, Akira."

"They wont be", Akira sets the gun aside, " _I_ will."

Then, the six foot piece of stale licorice smiles like he's won the local  _lottery._

"You called me Akira."

" _Don't_ get used to it", he bites out, "I don't want you there."

"So you're fine with the others in there, but not with me?"

"That's not what I said."

"It was implied", Akira drums his fingers. "We trust each other."

" _Do_ we?"

"Yes. Don't we?"

Silence oozes through Leblanc. Goro licks his lips nervously.

"Okay, you're right. I _don't_ want you there. I changed my mind."

"What can I do to change it again?"

 _Make a promise_ , Goro immediately thinks. _Pinky promise me. Or go back and time and shoot me before I shoot someone else. Or fuck me. Or just send me to jail._

"Do you want to change my heart?" They are words that struggle to exist.

"I do."

"The others?"

"Ann wants to. Yusuke is indifferent. Makoto, Futaba and Ryuji are all pretty admant about how they feel about you. Mona thinks you can change."

"Haru?"

"Her heart's big. She'd prefer not to be involved, though."

"Right."

"Goro", Akira digs and digs until there's nothing but dirt, "I'm asking you to let me in."

"If I do", it's easy to pretend when you're an emotional wreck that every conscious decision is made from a view of logic, "everything I have worked for would be for _nothing_. I don't think you understand how vital revenge is to my mental health right now."

"I think this is the most I've heard you speak at once", Akira muses and Goro scoffs behind a burning face.

"You're so fucking cocky. You're always so cocky. I _hate_ it. You think you'd be more angry at the world- your parents _abandoned_ you. I doubt that felt great."

"They didn't abandon me."

" _What_ then?", defense mechanisms can send people teetering (in this case, propelling) off of the edge of self-destruction. "They did it because they _loved_ you? Give me a break."

"Yes", Akira says it so surely that it immediately outranks Goro's perception of a pain scale. "They wanted to keep me safe, Akechi. So they sent me to someone who they knew would. We're a lot alike, you and I, but I want you to know that we're also completely different."

Briefly, he wonders if he can send himself into a mental breakdown here in reality.

"You deserve a chance for vengance", Akira continues, "but _not_ like this." The gun sits heavily within the subtext.

"You just don't want to die." His voice box must be sinking into his stomach for it to sound so distant.

"I'll admit self preservation is high on my list", Akira winces, "If you go through with your plan, Goro, it won't work. I want you to understand that before making your choice."

"This is just blackmail." Life would be easy if Akira were the malleable mess he existed as in Goro's brain. Then again, with a bullet to the head he _would_ be.

"Blackmail assuming you have a heart", he has the audacity to correct. Goro feels his nose scrunch.

"You know I do."

"So let me in."

Ah, right. A clenching feeling sinks back into his chest. A _not so subtle_ reminder of his own humanity.

"I get to go in with you", he says finally. "I lead."

Akira purses his lips

"Okay. Do you want a hug?"

"No", Goro folds his arms against his chest. _Yes please._

"It was worth a shot."

"Shut up, Akira."

"Thank you for trusting me."

"Whatever."

Akira smiles and the night has become so late that birds begin to wake up. It feels safe enough to finally let the tension waver out from under his bones, and yet Akira's smile drops. Just the smallest bit.

"Why did you come here tonight?", he asks, leaning back and scratching his neck, "I mean, I'm glad you did but it's a bit abrupt."

Talk about a nail in the living coffin that is the confines of his physical body.

"I-..." _Left ankle_ , Goro thinks miserably. His voice box rattles near the floor. Akira seems to pick up on the reluctance.

"You don't have to tell me."

"I _know_ ", Goro pulls at his hair again, "I know. I'm... I feel sick, just _being_. I want..." He wipes his face roughly with both hands, hardening the wrinkles and _lack of sleep_ indicators.

"I apologise. I'm out of line."

"Where'd all that snark go?", Akira's mouth is tilted lopsidedly into humor at an attempt to diffuse, "I was enjoying it."

 _I could shoot you_ , Goro doesn't say.

"I don't enjoy how much you know about me", Goro says instead. It's a lie very well manipulated. Except now he's not sure if he's been reading _Akira_ right at all. "How much you can... see. How do you do it?"

"We're alike, I told you." _You proved we aren't._

"I feel so much _less_ than you."

"That's funny", Akira doesn't smile, "I feel like you're more than I could ever be."

For once, that distinct pity smells like pomegranates.

"Do you want to get this over with?", Akira asks gently.

"Yes", Goro answers immediately, digging his fingers into his thighs. "But aren't you worried?"

"Yes", _we're honest with each other_ , "Do you wanna say it?"

_I don't think I can._

"I don't think I can."

"That's okay", the pity makes his face look younger and softer than it should. His lips are covered in a balm Goro can't guess the taste of and he wonders if this is what it means to be a blind follower of faith.

"Goro Akechi", Akira states, thumb on the app, "Nara, Japan. Purgatory."

The light stings his eyes.


End file.
